The Bible
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 50, No. 1 – Fall 2007
Managing Editor: Malcolm B. Yarnell III
Edited by Stanley E. Porter. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006. 330 pages. Paperback. $29.00.
Without question, the issue addressed in this composition of articles is vital to the study of both the Old and New Testaments. The book is comprised of a compilation of articles presented at the 2003 Colloquium in New Testament, which was held at McMaster Divinity College. The organization is simple with an introduction by the editor, followed by ten chapters each from a different author, then a conclusion by Andreas Köstenberger, who contributes one of the earlier chapters and interacts with the other chapters in the conclusion.
The first two chapters are intended to be foundational to the discussion of the remaining eight. The first chapter, written by Daniel Stamps, addresses the general use of the Old Testament in the New. However, the author raises more questions than he is able to answer related to the wide range of approaches to understanding how the New Testament writers interpreted the Old Testament within their own contexts. He concludes rather benignly that the primary way the New Testament writers employed the use of the Old Testament was as a rhetorical device.
In the second chapter Timothy McLay gets somewhat bogged down with trying to determine the nature of the canon available to the New Testament writers. He believes that any reference to a “biblical text” in the early church is anachronistic. Later in the book, his contention that there was no “unanimity regarding what particular books were considered Scripture in the Early Church” (43) is later questioned in the conclusion (261). The four chapters related to the use of the Old Testament in the Gospels each address how biblical quotations are generally introduced and how they are used by the authors. The chapter on the use of the Old Testament in John, written by Paul Miller, would have been strengthened by an emphasis on Jesus’ use of the Old Testament. Rather, the writer spends much of the chapter attempting to explain that “the true meaning of scripture cannot be found within the text itself ” (131), and concludes that the text of Scripture is “completed, superseded, and even replaced by the living words of Jesus” (131), which seems circular in nature given the fact that we
have received those words from Scripture.
The strengths of the two chapters on Paul’s use of the Old Testament by James Aageson and Sylvia Keesmaat are their emphases on the need for the practical application of Paul’s message for the church today. However, Aageson’s argument is weakened by his contention that readers today have license to interpret Scripture in the same way as Paul (158). In the conclusion Köstenberger rightly questions this claim based on Paul’s authority as an Apostle (285). Additionally, and more fundamentally, it
should be emphasized that Paul wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Aageson’s conclusion that Paul’s experiences were “as important in the interpretive enterprise as were the texts of Scripture” (158) carelessly elevates experience to the same level as the authority of Scripture.
An entire chapter in the book, written by Kurt Richardson, is dedicated to James’ use of Job as an example of faith. Although the case is well made that Job serves as an exemplar of James’ teaching on faithfulness amidst suffering, the chapter seems to overstate the impact of Job on the book of James.
The final chapter was prepared subsequent to the colloquium by Köstenberger and attempts to cover the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament books of I and II Timothy, James, Hebrews, Jude, I and II Peter, I, II, and III John, and Revelation. He does a good job summarizing these uses within each book but clearly felt constrained by the amount of material and the attempt to “close some of [the] gap” (294) in areas not previously addressed. Consequently, the mass of material in this chapter is both too much to be instructive for the discussion and out of proportion to the other chapters.
Köstenberger is also the author of the conclusion. He does a good job interacting with the previous articles; however, the chapter would have been strengthened by utilizing a different author than one from the previous chapters, which prevented any response to his own chapter. Moreover, in the conclusion, he raises questions of several of the chapters to which the authors of those chapters are not given a chance to respond.
Overall, the book provides a helpful addition to the study of the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament. It effectively calls for further study and hopefully stimulates greater interest in rightly dividing the Word of God.
